Attica Locke’s highly anticipated new novel The Cutting Season is an atmospheric murder mystery that weaves together two stories, skillfully drawing readers between past and present. A gripping story of race, love, and politics, The Cutting Season grabs readers from the first page. Caren Gray’s family has been connected to Belle Vie, an antebellum plantation in Louisiana, for generations. Unlike the neighboring farm where migrant workers harvest sugarcane, Belle Vie is now an historic estate open for tourists and social events. Caren lives on and manages the estate where she catches glimpses of the plantation’s dark history every day. When a murdered woman who worked on the neighboring farm is found in a shallow grave on Belle Vie, local police begin an investigation that Caren feels isn’t being handled properly. She digs deeper, asking questions that lead her to Belle Vie’s past. As she learns more, she starts to see parallels between the current murder and the disappearance of a former slave named Jason in 1872. Caren is unearthing secrets that someone may kill to keep hidden.

This novel is the first book in HarperCollins publishing’s new Dennis Lehane Books imprint. Lehane says of Locke’s writing, “I was first struck by Attica Locke's prose, then by the ingenuity of her narrative and finally and most deeply by the depth of her humanity. She writes with equal amounts grace and passion. After just two novels, I'd probably read the phone book if her name was on the spine." If The Cutting Season is any indication of what readers can expect from Lehane’s imprint, it will be very successful.